


to love and back

by rizcriz



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, and then just pick up the pieces and beat them to death with a hammer until theyre dust, and then mail the dust to the writers and say hey look its my hopes and dreams, but i did write this, fuck canon we live in the AU, i have self control, so i didn't do that, you crushed them, you know when a show fucks up so exponentially that you want to bash your computer into a wall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-31 00:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19038352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rizcriz/pseuds/rizcriz
Summary: It’s not what he expected to lie on this side of the door. For the peace and ease of it all to be so all consuming that he’d just. Not want to go. But, the door’s still there, can feel the rope wrapped around his waist scratching  at the corner of the doorframe whenever he moves, and he doesn’t even care, because he’d walked through, and Quentin had just been standing there. Almost like he’d been waiting for him. And for the past however long it’s been, if he can even quantify time in a timeless expanse of everything, they’ve been unable to unravel from one another.“Is this the afterlife?” Quentin asks, a moment later, breath gushing out of him, and forming a small cloud above them. It’s not even cold. It’s just this place; everything they do creates color or planets or clouds. Every breath, and every movement. There’s a tree forming at the edges of the clearing--which stills feels eerily similar to the one Quentin and Eliot spent a lifetime together finding the beauty of all life in—creaking and crackling; Eliot pretends not to see the fresh bark as it crackles to life, and flutters to the ground; not quite ready for the growth spurt that spawns it.





	to love and back

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from This Century's song of the same name.

“I never want to leave.”

“I know. Me neither.” Eliot pauses to roll onto his side and look at Quentin’s profile. “But we have to, Q.”

Quentin doesn’t respond, eyebrows furrowing as he tilts his head. His eyes flick back and forth, and Eliot twists his neck to follow his gaze. Above them, the stars and universe gaze down on them, glimmering and beautiful and somehow even more vibrant than they were on the clear nights in Indiana. He can see the shapes of distant galaxies; stars and planets. 

It’s not what he expected to lie on this side of the door. For the peace and ease of it all to be so all consuming that he’d just. Not want to go. But, the door’s still there, can feel the rope wrapped around his waist scratching  at the corner of the doorframe whenever he moves, and he doesn’t even care, because he’d walked through, and Quentin had just been standing there. Almost like he’d been waiting for him. And for the past however long it’s been, if he can even quantify time in a timeless expanse of everything, they’ve been unable to unravel from one another.

“Is this the afterlife?” Quentin asks, a moment later, breath gushing out of him, and forming a small cloud above them. It’s not even cold. It’s just this place; everything they do creates color or planets or clouds. Every breath, and every movement. There’s a tree forming at the edges of the clearing--which stills feels eerily similar to the one Quentin and Eliot spent a lifetime together finding the beauty of all life in—creaking and crackling; Eliot pretends not to see the fresh bark as it crackles to life, and flutters to the ground; not quite ready for the growth spurt that spawns it. 

Eliot’s eyes flicker back over to him. “I . . . don’t know.” And he really doesn’t. 

But if it is, it makes sense. 

An eternity of peace after the lives they’ve lived. A life of nothing wrapped up in everything. Where they could go back, but choose not to because they know their stories done. Wrapped up, and tied with a silver bow for emphasis.

“You died?” Quentin rolls over, tucking his arm under his cheek and gazing up at him with his ridiculous— beautiful, kind, soft—  _ long  _ eyelashes fluttering. Water pools along their edges, and it takes all Eliot has not to reach up and wipe them away. 

“No,” He says, barely more than a whisper, “Q. I didn’t die.” 

“Then how are you here?” Quentin’s always had less self restraint when it comes to doing what he wants. Which is why Eliot’s not surprised when he reaches out and brushes his thumb along Eliot’s cheek bone, and says, as soft as the wind in the trees, “I’ve been waiting for you. I don’t think I knew I was waiting. But I saw you. And I knew.” His hand flattens out to cup Eliot’s jaw, and Eliot can’t resist letting his own eyes fall shut and leaning into the touch, “I knew I was waiting for you.” 

He reaches up and wraps his hand around Quentin’s wrist, holds his hand to him without opening his eyes. “You don’t have to wait,” He says after a beat. Quentin scoots in closer, the ground quivering beneath them as he does so. There’s a distance roar of something new forming, gentle and furious and beautiful, just like Quentin. “In fact, I don’t want you to.” 

There’s a shaky breath that builds tiny tornadoes around them; minimature whirlwinds that do no damage, but dance along their skin. “You don’t want me to wait for you?” 

“No.” He opens his eyes, heart crashing to a stop at the hurt look passing like a shadow over Quentin’s gaze. The misty eyes flicker between his, before Quentin tilts his head back to look up at the sky above them. “Q . . .” 

“I thought you were lying.” 

“Q.” 

“I thought you were being self sabotaging and I was too scared to stop you.” 

He sits up, his hand sliding down the inside of Quentin’s arm as Quentin’s hand slips away from his cheek. His forefinger folds in on the crease of Quentin’s elbow, and he squeezes, gentle to get Quentin’s attention. “That’s not what I’m doing, Q,” He says, leaning in as a rosebush erupts from the ground, gentle and forceful up by the tree at the edge of the clearing, oddly familiar in the way the branches wrap up in themselves, “I’m asking you to come back with me.” 

His brow furrows, gaze reluctantly ripping away from Quentin’s confused, wide eyes, to sweep over the clearing. It’s not just the roses or the feeling of it that’s familiar. It  _ is  _ familiar. All of it. Even the mountains along the horizon that hadn’t been there when they first sat down in the grass. The cottage hidden beneath brush and trees, that’s growing and wilting as fast as it came. It shouldn’t surprise him, but a little surprised laugh bubbles out of him, and the grass beneath them starts to brown. 

He’s starting to understand why the door never disappears. 

“Why would we leave here?” 

Eliot twists his neck around, feels sand pool beneath him, and looks down to find a familiar square pitch beneath them. His eyebrows furrow painfully, heart thudding in his chest as what the clearing is finally starts taking shape. He digs his free hand into the rough sand beneath him, feels small pebbles catch on the grooves of his fingers— just like they did for the better part of fifty years, and, breath hitching, turns to look at Quentin again. 

“Q . . .” 

Quentin’s eyes are glassy and he sits up, too, lifts his free hand, and holds up a green tile, glancing down at it like he’s not sure how it ended up in his hand. He’s smiling when he tilts his watery gaze back up to Eliot. “We can be happy here, again,” He says, holding the tile out for him. “We don’t have to go anywhere.” 

He’s tempted to take it, but something tugs at his gut that says it’s a trap. So he reaches up, sand pulling where it falls from his hand, and places his hand overtop Quentin’s, thumb brushing along the side of the tile, relishing in the rough, coarse edges of it against the skin of his thumb. It is too familiar. Even in the vague way that life settles around their hearts; even in all that they had that they never really touched. It still feels like he’s grabbed these tiles a thousand and ten times. “I know,” He says, “But we can be happy there, too.” 

“Can we?” 

He slides his hand up Quentin’s arm, shoulder, and the column of his throat, until he can cup his jaw, and force him to meet his gaze. He swallows once, nodding, even as the furrow in his own brow deepens, almost painfully so. “Yes.” He brushes his thumb along Quentin’s cheekbone. “We don’t need the mosaic, Q. We don’t need Fillory.” He glances around them, at the world building itself beneath their very flesh. “We don’t need anything,” He adds, dragging his gaze back to Quentin. “We just need you and me and the rope that pulls us back through the door when I tug on it.” 

Quentin watches him, the tears brimming, and then falling. Eliot catches them before they get much further than his cheekbones, though, leaning in and pressing his forehead to Quentins. “This isn’t real, Q. This is a fantasy.” 

Quentin nods, his eyes sliding shut as he cups the back of Eliot’s neck, fingers tangling in the hair there. “I know,” He breathes, and Eliot can feel it— Quentin trembling, and with him, the world around them as trees are born and die just as fast as they break through the soil. As the earth beneath their feet takes the form of the life they never lived. “But it feels real. As real as anything else has.” 

He’s not wrong. 

But. 

“We could do it different this time,” Eliot murmurs, closing his eyes and leaning in to bump his nose against Quentin’s. “We wouldn’t have to tell our kids about Margo, because she’ll be there to teach them to shoplift. And Kady can teach them to fight for themselves. And Alice can teach them confidence and kindness and strength and,” He shrugs, a little smile wobbling to life, “if we want to have a date night, we could probably trick Todd into not fucking it up.” 

“I—”

He slides his hand up Quentin’s arm and pulls away. “We don’t have to be  _ alone _ to be happy.  _ You _ don’t have to be  _ dead _ to be happy. Even if it means you’re not happy with me. If you . . . want to be with Alice, I’ll respect that. But I need you to agree to come back with me. You won’t get through the door unless it’s your choice, too.” 

Quentin blinks up at him, reaching out and grabbing his hand. “Will you leave if I want to stay?” 

Breathing catching in his chest, Eliot leans back, fingers twitching as he resists the urge to snatch it out of Quentin’s grasp. Instead, he flips his hand around and weaves their fingers together. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he says after a moment, gazing down at their hands as a speck of red and then green and yellow fills the tan space beneath them. He doesn’t even need to look to see what shape the tiles have taken beneath them. Knows that it’s the design they were working on the day Quentin pauses what he was doing, and looked across the clearing, to where Eliot was sitting at the table looking through the notebook of past designs, and just, very  _ casually _ told him he was in love with him. 

“I . . .” Quentin swallows, and his hair drifts in the wind that’s suddenly gushing around them all gentle and warm, much like it was that same day. He turns to look up at the sky, where the galaxies and stars are disappearing beneath the powdery white and blue of the clouds and sky. “I don’t want to feel the way I did,” he manages, turning to look at Eliot from beneath his lashes. “I’ve never felt so . . .  _ okay.” _

Eliot tucks Quentin’s wayward bangs behind his ear and leans back in, their noses a breadth from brushing, as he lets his fingers settle on that special place at the back of Quentin’s neck. “I know,” He breathes, closing his eyes and the distance between them, settling the point of his forehead to the bridge of Quentin’s nose. He licks his lips before continuing. “And I know I shouldn’t ask, but I’m a selfish motherfucker, Quentin.” 

“No, you’re not.” He hears the clatter as Quentin drops the tile and brings his hand up to the back of Eliot’s neck, breath hitching as his fingers curl in his hair again. Their other hands remain clasped on the ground beside them, but Quentin scoots in closer so their knees brush.

“I am,” Eliot says, “I am selfish because I’m going to ask you to give this up for me. For our friends. Trade the peace for a heartbeat, Q. For me.” He feels Quentin’s inhale, like he’s going to retort, but he squeezes his neck. “And if not for me, for everyone else.” 

Quentin scoffs, his breath washing over Eliot’s face. Butterflies erupt as the ghost of his breath falls away from his skin, and flutter all around them. “Everything I do anymore is for you, El.” He hesitates, swallowing audibly, and his breath stutters, before he tilts his face up, pressing his lips to bottom of Eliot’s chin. “Everything.” 

Eliot can’t stop the biting,  _ “Not everything,” _ that follows the statement. Because he still remembers coming to. Still remembers Margo’s hand in his, and the look in her eyes, and the moment he learned why the world seemed smaller. 

“I hesitated,” Quentin agrees. “But look what that hesitation gave me.” 

He doesn’t need to. He still feels it forming all around him. Like it’s going through their years together. He half expects to hear a childs laughter, shrill and yet, somehow so calming, echoing around the clearing. But Teddy has his own family, his own happy place, if he even has an afterlife at all. 

“Please come back with me,” He says, once he’s certain their son isn’t going to come bursting out from behind the bushes. “Q, please,” He repeats, eyes and nose stinging when Quentin doesn’t respond the first time. “Don’t make me live the rest of my life without you. Not when I know what this is. What we could have.” 

Something wet drips onto their hands beneath them, and he’s not sure if it’s rain or which of them is crying, but he lets the water run between the divets of their interlinked fingers, and tugs their hands into his lap. 

“Don’t make me say goodbye, Q.” 

“You wouldn’t stay?” Quentin asks, pulling back just enough to look at him with those wide, stormy eyes. His chin dimples as he tilts his head. “Why?” 

Eliot brushes his thumb along the edge of Quentin’s jaw. “Because I’m not dead. Because Margo’s still out there. Because there’s a whole world that needs us, even if trying to save it makes me nauseous as all hell because why is this  _ our _ fucking job?” He shakes his head, forces the tangent he’s sobbed at Margo on a nightly basis since he woke up down, and squeezes Quentin’s neck, pausing only long enough to find the right words. “And . . . because we can’t be anything but ghosts here, Q. Living in the past, being people we aren’t anymore.” 

Quentin stares at him, before his eyes dart down to watch the water run between their fingers. His next words are slow, careful. Like a caution sign blinking in the wind. “What if . . . what if I hesitate again?” 

Eliot’s gut reaction is to scream ‘you won’t!’ and pick him up, toss him over his shoulder, and carry him back to the real world to prove it. But that’s not how it works. Least that’s what the guardian of the well says. So, instead, and ducks his head; makes Quentin look him in the eye. “If you ever even look like hesitating, I’ll drag you out of danger, or I’ll come back through that fucking door and drag you back into real life all over again.” 

The fact that this is a one time deal doesn’t mean anything. They’ve beat death enough times now that he knows if there’s a will, there’s a fucking way. 

“El . . .” 

“Please.” He can’t help the desperation that seeps into his voice; that drowns out the fear and trepidation. That blocks out the beauty evolving all around them, a cascading fifty years revolving in and around itself as their lives build from the ground up. “Q. I need. . .” the  _ you _ dies on his tongue as Quentin sniffs and looks up at him, crease between his brow leveling out, until he unravels their hands, and for a moment, a brief heartbeat of a second, Eliot thinks this is Quentin telling him it’s done. 

But he pushes up and Eliot’s eyes fall shut as their lips connect. It’s messy and takes him a moment too long to respond in kind, because Quentin’s pulling away and pressing their foreheads together as he clumsily reaches back down for Eliot’s hand and Eliot trails after him, helplessly seeking him out. 

“Are you asking me to choose you?” He asks into the skin of Eliot’s cheek. “Tell me you’re asking me to choose you.” 

A gust of air pushes out of Eliot’s chest and he nods, twisting to press a kiss to the shell of his ear. “We work. Look around us,” He urges, “Proof of fucking concept, Q. Yeah.  _ Yes.”  _ He brushes his hand up into Quentin’s hair and nods, “I’m asking you to choose me. And our friends. And, yes it’s weird coming from me, but.  _ Life.  _ Choose life.” 

For the first time since they settled in the grass, and the clearing evolved from the simple clearing overcast by galaxies into the life they lived together, everything goes still. A chaotic silence that sends his heart crashing against his ribcage.

And then—

“Pull the rope.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Not happy with it, but who cares lmaooo


End file.
